Chinese investment in the continent's mining industry comes in different forms and is crucial for both, as Andrew Moody reports in Cape Town, South Africa

The relative slowdown in China's economy was one of a number of factors casting a shadow over the recent Mining Indaba Conference in Cape Town. The mining sector in South Africa has other problems closer to home, including labor unrest and the threat of increasing government regulation.

But the demand for resources from the world's second-largest economy - as for the rest of the continent - remains an important lifeline for the mining industry.